By Mark Peterson
A few weeks ago I wrote of my visit in 1977 to the last living eunuch in Korea and I wrote of his jokbo (genealogical book) and how it showed adopted eunuch children retained their natal family surname.
The article stirred some interest among our readers and as a result, several questions came to me and I received several requests to write more about eunuchs.
One reader commented on a house that still stands in Seoul that was described as a eunuch's house. That reader, Jacco Zwetsloot, showed me the house tucked in behind the Japanese embassy, near Gyeongbok Palace. We walked around the outside; it appeared empty and deserted.
There were two shops on the street side that had been remodeled to appear new. But to get a good look at the house we were able to go into the high-rise building next to it, and look down on it and even take a photograph. It didn't look to me like a eunuch's home, from what I have read about eunuch's homes.
The thing that I have read is that eunuch homes had several inner gates leading to a protected inner courtyard where the eunuch's wife and children could be safe and protected from the outsiders' view and possible ridicule. My source of information was the historical fiction in a short story format written by An Sugil in 1948.
The story, "Chwiguk" in Korean, and translated as "The Green Chrysanthemum" by Zong Insup, published in the Korea Journal tells of an unfortunate girl who was sold to the house of a eunuch to be the bride of the eunuch's grandson, also, of course, a eunuch.
The setting was the current year, 1948, and the eunuchs were no longer palace officials, but leftover fragments of a once-powerful Joseon court. The story seemed to be saying that holding on to past glories ― basking in one's ancestors' accomplishments as some "yangban" were wont to do ― was as worthless as the declined and outdated institution of the eunuch.
Therein, An describes a eunuch's house as having several gates to shut off the outside world for the women of the eunuch house. The innermost gate was called the "ilgak-mun" (the one-angle gate, or the one-antler gate) and it symbolized in the story the imprisonment of the women and children of the traditional eunuch household.
The house we viewed from the high-rise building near the Japanese embassy appeared to be like the typical yangban house of old with an outer quarter, the men's quarter; and an inner quarter, the women's quarter. There were not layers of gates and courtyards as the story describes.
And the neighborhood might have been wrong. The house is to the southeast of the palace, whereas we understand that the eunuchs lived in an area to the west of the palace, an area known today at Hyoja-dong.
Here, too, there is an interesting eunuch connection. Hyoja means "filial son" and is a core concept, and core value or teaching in Confucianism. Sounds very good. One source even says that it was named for two notable "hyoja" that lived in the neighborhood. But another, much more interesting and believable source says that since that was where the eunuchs lived, it was originally known as "Hwaja-dong" ― "hwaja" is an old pejorative for eunuch, meaning apparently something like "burn out" or maybe "faggot."
With the fall of the Joseon Kingdom that neighborhood, close to downtown, was an upscale place to live ― but not with a name like "Hwaja-dong"; so they changed it to the much better sounding "neighborhood of the filial sons" ― Hyoja-dong.
There still might be a case to be made for the old house still standing at the southeast of the palace. The setting of the eunuch house with the "ilgak-gate" in the short story was just a little farther to the east of the old house we were looking at. So, maybe not all the eunuchs lived in the so-called eunuch neighborhood of "Hwaja-dong."
Eunuchs may have lived in many places in Seoul, and outside of Seoul. My contact in 1977 lived a ways from Seoul, out in the countryside, and I've read a newspaper article about a eunuch house, and its unique construction in Gyeongsang provinces.
At any rate, the institution of eunuchs, not unique to Korea by any means, is a quirky measure of pre-modern society. Eunuchs are found in most, if not all, palaces in olden times of many countries. There is the story of the eunuch in the Bible that sought out Jesus to learn of his teachings. And there was the non-palace case of eunuchs in the opera houses of late medieval Europe who were great singers and superstars of their times.
For Korean eunuchs, to Korea's credit, they didn't get control of the government the way they often did in China.
Mark Peterson (markpeterson@byu.edu) is professor emeritus of Korean, Asian and Near Eastern languages at Brigham Young University in Utah.
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The article stirred some interest among our readers and as a result, several questions came to me and I received several requests to write more about eunuchs.
One reader commented on a house that still stands in Seoul that was described as a eunuch's house. That reader, Jacco Zwetsloot, showed me the house tucked in behind the Japanese embassy, near Gyeongbok Palace. We walked around the outside; it appeared empty and deserted.
There were two shops on the street side that had been remodeled to appear new. But to get a good look at the house we were able to go into the high-rise building next to it, and look down on it and even take a photograph. It didn't look to me like a eunuch's home, from what I have read about eunuch's homes.
The thing that I have read is that eunuch homes had several inner gates leading to a protected inner courtyard where the eunuch's wife and children could be safe and protected from the outsiders' view and possible ridicule. My source of information was the historical fiction in a short story format written by An Sugil in 1948.
The story, "Chwiguk" in Korean, and translated as "The Green Chrysanthemum" by Zong Insup, published in the Korea Journal tells of an unfortunate girl who was sold to the house of a eunuch to be the bride of the eunuch's grandson, also, of course, a eunuch.
The setting was the current year, 1948, and the eunuchs were no longer palace officials, but leftover fragments of a once-powerful Joseon court. The story seemed to be saying that holding on to past glories ― basking in one's ancestors' accomplishments as some "yangban" were wont to do ― was as worthless as the declined and outdated institution of the eunuch.
Therein, An describes a eunuch's house as having several gates to shut off the outside world for the women of the eunuch house. The innermost gate was called the "ilgak-mun" (the one-angle gate, or the one-antler gate) and it symbolized in the story the imprisonment of the women and children of the traditional eunuch household.
The house we viewed from the high-rise building near the Japanese embassy appeared to be like the typical yangban house of old with an outer quarter, the men's quarter; and an inner quarter, the women's quarter. There were not layers of gates and courtyards as the story describes.
And the neighborhood might have been wrong. The house is to the southeast of the palace, whereas we understand that the eunuchs lived in an area to the west of the palace, an area known today at Hyoja-dong.
Here, too, there is an interesting eunuch connection. Hyoja means "filial son" and is a core concept, and core value or teaching in Confucianism. Sounds very good. One source even says that it was named for two notable "hyoja" that lived in the neighborhood. But another, much more interesting and believable source says that since that was where the eunuchs lived, it was originally known as "Hwaja-dong" ― "hwaja" is an old pejorative for eunuch, meaning apparently something like "burn out" or maybe "faggot."
With the fall of the Joseon Kingdom that neighborhood, close to downtown, was an upscale place to live ― but not with a name like "Hwaja-dong"; so they changed it to the much better sounding "neighborhood of the filial sons" ― Hyoja-dong.
There still might be a case to be made for the old house still standing at the southeast of the palace. The setting of the eunuch house with the "ilgak-gate" in the short story was just a little farther to the east of the old house we were looking at. So, maybe not all the eunuchs lived in the so-called eunuch neighborhood of "Hwaja-dong."
Eunuchs may have lived in many places in Seoul, and outside of Seoul. My contact in 1977 lived a ways from Seoul, out in the countryside, and I've read a newspaper article about a eunuch house, and its unique construction in Gyeongsang provinces.
At any rate, the institution of eunuchs, not unique to Korea by any means, is a quirky measure of pre-modern society. Eunuchs are found in most, if not all, palaces in olden times of many countries. There is the story of the eunuch in the Bible that sought out Jesus to learn of his teachings. And there was the non-palace case of eunuchs in the opera houses of late medieval Europe who were great singers and superstars of their times.
For Korean eunuchs, to Korea's credit, they didn't get control of the government the way they often did in China.
Mark Peterson (markpeterson@byu.edu) is professor emeritus of Korean, Asian and Near Eastern languages at Brigham Young University in Utah.
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